Titling an interview with Tom and Renee Pastoor “New in Town” is what those in the writing business would call irony, given their thirty one years of residence in the neighborhood. But that is where they took me, to a time when they were new in town.

“We bought the house dirt cheap. We met Ray and Isabell Squires, who were our neighbors and really, kind of second grandparents to our children.”

We quickly had to pause our interview for the welcome interuption of neighborhood kids wanting to talk to Tom. Here is a scene and a continuation of the investment in the lives his neighbor’s children. And here, in a way, is Ray, who had done the same.

“So Ray and Isabell were like grandparents to our kids. They took care of them while we were doing projects around the house. I learned a lot from Ray. He helped me do some roofing on the garage. He was in his mid-seventies, and he carried the rolled roofing, on his shoulder, up the ladder, to show me how to do it. I learned a lot from him about being resourceful and being a gardener. He had the most beautiful garden. Basically, we’ve inherited his garden. He graduated from Michigan College, before it was Michigan State, and had a degree in horticulture and animal husbandry.”

Renee gave me a tour of their backyard, and the garden that Ray planted, and she and Tom had improved on. It’s incredibly beautiful, almost magical to someone whose imagination tends to carry him away.

“When Ray was a little boy, he had hearing loss. Six or seven years old. When he got old, he related to me how difficult that was, to be a boy and not be able to hear. He got pretty emotional about it, and Ray was a pretty tough guy. He was one of the original garden boys. There was a guy named McLouth that had a garden out by Mona Lake, by the Henry Street float bridge. And these kids from the neighborhood would go there and learn about gardening. I think it’s pretty fitting that we’re doing the same thing right across the street from his house.”

In the park, across the street from his house, Tom teaches the neighborhood kids about gardening. I’m beginning to think everyone in the neighborhood is a gardener. I had no idea when I got involved with McLaughlin that it’s agricultural roots ran so deep.

And in coming full circle, the kids painted a mural on the fence in the new park, right behind the garden where Tom works with them. And on that mural, they painted Ray’s old house.